
Class 



3-3503 



Book ^'--^ZAl 



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COPYRIGHT DKPOSm 



APRIL— MARCHING ! 



BY 
MARION FRANCIS BROWN 




BOSTON 
RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 



Copyright, 1922, by Marion Francis Brown 



All Rights Reserved 



o? 






Made in the United States of America 



Press of J. J. Little & Ives Company, New York, U. S. A. 

DEC -1 72 

©C1A692185 



I 

To 

My MOTHER and FATHER 

AND 

SARA HUFF 

I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE 
THESE VERSES 



Many of the poems in this volume originally- 
appeared in The Boston Transcript, American 
Poetry Magazine, Ainslee's Magazine, Los 
Angeles Graphic, Contemporary Verse, Ladies' 
Home Journal, The Colonnade, McCall's Maga- 
zine, Ne<w England Magazine, The Designer, 
Modern Priscilla, Femina Magazine, Boston 
Daily Advertiser, Boston Herald, The Multi- 
tude — Chicago, Springfield Republican, Chris- 
tian Advocate, Chicago Tribune, Youth's Com- 
panion, The Lyric, and Good Housekeeping. 
The author desires to express her appreciation 
of the Editors' courtesy in allowing their publi- 
cation. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Spring Song 13 

Dawn Paint 14 

Love Walks in April 15 

When Spring Comes Back to Gilead 16 

Souvenir 17 

In March 17 

Dogwood 18 

The Rose that Kept the Spring Alive 18 

After Parting 19 

With August Days 20 

Prisoner 21 

At Twilight 22 

The Princess 22 

Sarki 24 

Love Me 25 

Valentine 26 

Words that You Have Spoken 27 

The Garden Gate 28 

Thoughts 29 

Life's Garden 29 

Your Name 30 

Poppies 31 

To One Distant 3I 

In Japan 32 

Perplexity 33 

Rosemary 34 

Had I Hailed You in the Rain 35 

ix 



Contents 



PAGE 

Wistaria 36 

Music in the Night 36 

Love's Completeness 37 

Because of Your Dear Faith 38 

The Gray Stone Church 38 

Ballyclair 39 

Vagabondia . 40 

Dream Vineyard 41 

Shipmate 4.3 

Tribute to William Huff, G. A. R., on His 87th 

Birthday 44 

The Road to Caverley 46 

The Mother 47 

Cradle Song 49 

Spring in the Factory 50 

Board for Two 51 

Boyhood's Town 53 

The Return 54 

To My Grand-Dads 55 

Loneliness 55 

Old Songs 56 

Autumn 56 

Inconsistency 57 

A Prayer in April . 57 

Invocation to the New Year 58 

The New-Born 60 

My Heart is Like a Hungry Bird 62 

Gypsy Lad 62 

Chastisement 63 

In Greenwich Village , . 64 

To a War Time Striker 65 

For King and Country 68 

The Whirlwind 69 



x 



Contents 



An Unknown Grave 70 

The Volunteer 71 

The Singing Sergeant 72 

In the Night 74 

War Christmas — 1915 75 

La Panne 76 

The Red Cross 77 

Prayer for Christmas — 19 14 77 

God's Ghost 78 

A Yankee Private Speaks 79 

The Lancers of Louvain 81 

Chateau-Thierry 83 

Red Easter 85 

Linen Musk 86 

Resignation 87 

Palm Sunday in the Trenches 87 

Ben Arad 89 

Royalty 89 

The City 90 

Pharisee 91 

Magdalene 93 

Celia 94 

Slivers 95 

In Memoriam 96 

To Charles Frohman 96 

Lincoln 97 

Dog-Pal 9 8 

A Birdcage Comedy 100 

Mother O' Mine 101 

Tribute to the Spirit of Motherhood 101 

"Traumerei" lc , 3 

Soft in the April Dusk 104 

Hero Worship IO c 



XI 



Contents 



PAGE 

Orthodoxy 106 

Identity 107 

Youth's Requiem 108 

Philosophy 108 

Gladness 109 

Challenge 110 

A Thanksgiving Prayer 11- 

Prayer for Courage 113 

Sea Waves 113 

Song of a Country Lane 113 

The Song Sparrow 115 

Jonquils 116 

Bluebird 116 

To a Bird in Flanders 117 

The Tavern 118 

Wanderer's Song 119 

The Fork of the Road 120 

Woods in March 121 

A Cycle of Seasons 122 

Prairies 126 

Quatrain 127 

Bridges 127 

Third Avenue 128 

The Call of the Road 128 

Wax Wings ]29 



XII 



SPRING SONG 



I have heard a River's singing 
And the music of a Tree. 
Now Life may clip my winging 
And lay her yoke on me. 

Yet I shall still remember, 
Long after I am dead, 
The stir of leaves in April 
And what the River said. 



13 



April — Marching 



DAWN PAINT 

March! and turn of the year to Spring! 
Gusty wind and a driving sleet. 
Lean, my Heart, to your listening . . . 
Click of the gate and marching feet ! 

What if across the years Love came 
Unheralded tonight, and laid 
His hand in yours, breathed low your name- 
Heart! are you fluttering, afraid? 

Footfalls stepping across the stars — 
Lean and listen, and slake your fill! 
Ghostly creak of the pasture bars ! 
Dream-blown note of a daffodil ! 

March! and turn of the year to Spring! 
Wind and flame and a cleansing tide! 
Turn, my Heart, to its blossoming. 
Saddle its beauty! RIDE! 



14 



April — Marching 



LOVE WALKS IN APRIL 

If we could fling back time tonight, Beloved, 
Cut clean the snarls of malice with a sword, 
Snuff out false pride, and let the winds of April 
Surge us with pity, temper us with God, 

If we could take the cattle trail at twilight 
For one last ride together, You and I, 
In the old way, with clinking spur and laughter, 
Whisper and song, as in the days gone by, 

Tell me : would scent of sagebrush on the prairie, 
Or thunder of the River running blue, 
Or stir of sap on amber-blazoned ranges 
Mean more than "just another spring" to you? 

Trailing the dusk, could breath or blare of beauty 
Wake you and break you — make you understand ? 
Then, oh come back! and finish out the journey, 
Saddle to saddle — riding — hand in hand! 



15 



April — Marching 



WHEN SPRING COMES BACK TO 
GILEAD 

When Spring comes back to Gilead, 
I wonder will she find 
Her flaming squills of April 
That once she left behind? 
Will there be jonquils blowing, 
And amber whirring bees, 
And dainty petaled shimmering 
Of dogwood trees ? 

When Spring comes back to Gilead, 
In blazing whirl of white, 
With tripping toe — and singing 
Across the scented night, 
Out of her world of lovers, 
Oh, will she miss us two, 
If we should fail this year to keep 
Our rendezvous? 

When Spring comes back to Gilead, 
O Heart of Me, who knows 
But pride may be forgotten 
In every flower that blows, 
And hearts that now are yearning 
May flame to life — and sing, 
When Spring comes back to Gilead, 
And warm lips cling! 

16 



A pril — March ing 



SOUVENIR 

Out of Love's ashes 
Rose a fairer dawn. 
Out of Love's silence 
Sweeter song was born. 

A wood thrush caroled in the lane. 
The poppies flamed the wheat again. 

Just this ! — yet I who had put away 
Life, as a gift of yesterday, 

Clutched it back 
And found its scars 
Burnished gold 
Of a myriad stars. 



IN MARCH 

When March winds whistle through the eaves, 
And willows crackle in the lane, 
And the cold snow with flurrying grace 
Drifts to my window-pane, 

I should be lonelier than the hills 
But for the thought of You that springs 
Like a white crocus in my heart — 
And sings and sings! 

17 



April — Marching 



DOGWOOD 

The dogwood never blooms in spring 
But in my heart a song is born 
Of witchery. For less a thing 
The dogwood never blooms in spring. 
Bud, bole, and leaf, and flashing wing, 
And You beside me in the dawn ! 
The dogwood never blooms in spring 
But in my heart a song is born. 



THE ROSE THAT KEPT THE SPRING 
ALIVE 

The little hothouse rose, my Dear, 
Has lost its bloom since then. 
And many an April day of cheer 
Has come and gone again. 

Yet still I hold its petals' dust. 

Ah ! can you ask me why ? 

You who would keep my dreams from rust, 

And still my passion's cry ? 



Across the silence of the snows. 
Through icy blizzards' drive, 
Your little April hothouse rose 
Has kept that spring alive. 
18 



April — Marc h ing 



AFTER PARTING 

Left foot! right foot!! 

So — the parting's over ? 

Trailing through the fragrant dusk 

Arm in arm again. 

Left foot! right foot!'. 

Jessamine and clover, 

And dripping scent of lilac-musk 

After the rain ! ! 

Once you would have laughed along 

With a merry madness. 

Once you would have flung your song 

High on its wing. 

Once you would have thought it wrong, 

Dear, in your gladness 

Not to have thrilled to 

The pulse of the spring ! 

Left foot! right foot! 
Life brings many changes. 
Maybe you are thinking I 
Am not just the same 
As in the dream-days of 
The blue-purple ranges 
When we lit our altars by 
The sunset's flame. 

Heigh-ho-nonny-o ! 
Well, we are together ! 

19 



April — Marching 



Little matters that the glow 
May have left Life's hue, 
Or that dreams and passion go 
Drifting down the heather. 
Left foot ! right foot ! ! 
Still— I have YOU! 



WITH AUGUST DAYS 

With August days I have you back again. 
The blush of poppies crimsoning the wheat, 
The wild soft sobbing of the summer rain, 
And whirr of south wind winnowing the grain 
Are things we knew and loved together, Sweet. 

With August days I have you back again. 
It needs must be, we loved them so, we two. 
And in your coming, Dear, I drown my pain. 
Your look, your voice, your touch are mine again, 
And all the harvest yields the peace of you. 



20 



April — Marching 



PRISONER 

After you went — when the first spring came, 
Yellow and gold like a wild young flame, 

I closed my heart and I cried: "I'm free! 
Never again your kiss for me ! 

Or voice, or touch, or look, or vow, 
Or step, or song ! I am finished now ! ! 

Free ! free ! !"— Then April dawned 
With dogwood bloom and violet wand, 

Plum tree white and jonquiled hill, 
Red-cap, lark, and whip-poor-will. 

And I knew I had spoken a lie — a lie, 
For no one was ever less free than I, 

Since Love is only a bondaged thing 
That cannot forget — in spring! 



April — Marching 



AT TWILIGHT 

Twilight at the end of day, 
Trembling sunbeams on the wall, 
Tinted shadows laced with gray, 
Creeping in, and shrouding all. 

Yonder hangs your pictured face, 
Roseate in its glow of hope — 
And beyond, a little space, 
Buds an April heliotrope. 

Dusk will deepen in a while, 
But the darkness of the hour 
Can not rob me of your smile, 
Or the fragrance of your flower. 



THE PRINCESS 

I wonder if she thinks of them — 
Those halcyon days of playtime, 
When fields were gemmed with jonquil gold 
And violet amethysts, 
How oft she came to "Sherwood," 
To "Sherwood" green with May-time, 
Where frowsled yeomen jousted 
In the fragrant orchard lists. 
22 



A pril — Marching 



So tall she seemed — and stately, 
So sweet yet so commanding, 
I used to think if Robin Hood 
Came back but for a day, 
To watch her crown our childhood 
With her dear understanding, 
The vision of his own love 
Would fade quite away. 

Would fade like merry magic 
On the pleached breezes carried. 
Maid Marion — nay, nor Little John 
Could hold his heart in fee, 
If once he heard the Princess sing 
In "Sherwood" where we tarried — 
In "Sherwood" green with May-time, 
And fair as Arcady. 

So deep she grew a part of us 

In days of make-believing, 

That even now in dreams sometimes 

I'm in the lists again, 

Wearing her favor on my breast — 

A scarf of crimson weaving, 

To win my spurs of knighthood 

In a world of doughty men ! 



23 



April — Matching 



SARKI 

Today when Sarki came 

And stood before us with the flame 

Of love and life and laughter in her face, 

A sudden tensioned silence held the place 

From gallery to gallery. Why, I thought, 

Should Sarki choose a theme so strangely fraught 

With tragic hopelessness — Sarki whose grand, 

Brave, laughter-loving soul could hold the wand 

Of merry magic o'er a winter's day 

Until its grayness burgeoned into May. 

The song was Tosti's passion-shaken cry 
To dying summer — that divine goodbye 
Of love to hope. As Sarki sang, we heard 
The heart sobs of a woman anguish-stirred 
Beyond what life can bear. We saw 
Sarki's own quivering unmasked soul, with awe, 
Singing itself to faintness of despair 
As the last cadence trembled through the air: 

"A pleading look! a stifled cry! 
Goodbye forever. Goodbye! Goodbye!" 

Why in unguarded moments, God, I ask, 
Must souls tear down their superficial mask, 
And fling the lie to happiness 
In their distress? 

24 



April — Marching 



Almost I wish I had not learned to know 
That Sarki 'neath her laughter hid a woe 
As deep as Rachel's. Now through all my years 
I'll hear in surface-laughter rain of tears, 
And see beyond the sunny autumn flowers 
Flecking the meadows through the mellow hours, 
The tawny forests wailing dismal breath 
Of wild sad music, undertoned with death 
Like Sarki's laughter — Sarki, glorious, gay, 
Who broke our blindness in her song today ! 



LOVE ME! 

Love me, that I may hear 
In all the winds that blow 
A little song of ecstasy 
From out the Long-Ago. 

Love me, that I may see 
In April's bluest skies, 
As it were only yesterday, 
The glory of your eyes. 

Love me, that I may feel — 
Oh unforgotten bliss! 
In the warm fragrance of the sun, 
Dear Heart, your kiss. 



25 



April — Marching 



VALENTINE 

When trees were icicled in white, 
I heard you sing. 

Without was winter, cold and bright. 
Within was spring. 

You never sang again to me, 
O Heart of Mine, 

Yet each year brings with memory 
A Valentine ! 



26 



April — Marching 



WORDS THAT YOU HAVE SPOKEN 

Words that you have spoken 
Come back to me like music, 
Trailing tones of loveliness 
For the four winds to share : 
Whispers low and broken 
That quicken me to battle, 
Or place a rainbow in my heart, 
And on my lips — a prayer. 

Words that you have spoken 
Are pulse and wine to hunger. 
I know no emptiness of heart 
Or weariness in power 
When they come back in token 
Of beauty unforgotten, 
To snatch from out eternity 
One shining April hour. 



27 



April — Marching 



THE GARDEN GATE 

I know a little garden gate, 
Where crimson roses are. 
And early morn or evening late, 
Its latchstring stands ajar, 
Awaiting through the hours blown 
Above a summer's day 
A gentle touch it has not known 
Since You went away. 

I know a little garden gate. 
Come back, my Sweet, come back 
From hollow hills grown desolate 
Along Life's wind-swept track. 
Beyond a thousand lonely miles 
The hungry heart of me 
Is calling You across Love's aisles 
To Arcady ! 



28 



April — Marching 



THOUGHTS 

My thoughts are yellow butterflies 
That flitter in the grass, 
And You a wind across the skies 
That hails them as they pass. 

My thoughts are dust-white moths that blow 

On frail wings of desire, 

And You the golden candle-glow 

That kindles them with fire. 



LIFE'S GARDEN 

Kisses once I thought so sweet, 
Stolen in the braken — 
Colin's, mischievous and fleet, 
And Philon's passion-shaken, 

Now are but as thistle-blow 
Scattered down Life's garden — 
Little ghosts of Long-Ago, 
Craving tender pardon. 

Kisses once that made me wise 
Now have lost their leaven 
In the kiss of baby eyes 
Drawing faith to Heaven ! 
29 



April — Marching 



YOUR NAME 

A name is but a simple thing, 

Yet yours means this to me: 

The glad wild wonder of the spring 

In bird and blade and tree, 

Life that is quenchless, hopes that know 

No doubting — hold no fear, 

But keep where purple violets blow 

A rendezvous with cheer. 

Death has no place where worship shines. 
Tears have no place in song. 
Give me a little road that winds 
A silver stream along, 
With latticed cot, and chimney-flame, 
Hearth-smoke and trampled sod — 
And but the mention of your name 
Will quicken it with God. 



30 



April — Marching 



POPPIES 

Bright poppies in a waving mass, 
A wind-swept field — a laughing lass, 
An autumn sky with clouds on wing, 

Oh what a simple little thing 

To think of down the wake of years ! 

To think of through a mist of tears ! 



TO ONE DISTANT 

Because you wrote, 
I feel the distance spanned 
Between our singing selves 
Across the miles. 

You've tipped the rose-jar. 
Lo ! and from your hand 
Are scattered petals 
Through my garden aisles! 



April — Marching 



IN JAPAN 

If you will come with me some spring, 

When April's forged her gold, 

And all the woods are burgeoning 

Above the forest mould, 

I'll be your comrade as of old, 

And in Love's caravan 

Will take you gypsying to my fold 

In far-away Japan. 

Oh Love, Love, Love! you and I together! 

Hand in hand to roam Japan 

Through all the fragrant weather! 

Love, Love, Love! oh sometime cross the sea 

And take a Pippa's holiday 

In old Japan with me. 

We two will seek our heart's ease there 

Where white tea roses blow 

Their perfumed petals through the air 

In fairy flakes of snow; 

And we will watch the lanterns glow 

Beneath the opal moon, 

While painted junks glide to and fro 

Along the blue lagoon. 

Oh Love, Love, Love! you and I together! 
Hand in hand to roam Japan 
Through all the fragrant weather ! 
Love, Love, Love ! oh sometime cross the sea 
And take a Pippa's holiday 
In old Japan with me. 
32 



A pril — Marching 



PERPLEXITY 

All the streams o'erflowing 
From the April rain. 

Gentle breezes blowing 
Through the reeds again. 

Thrushes northward flying 
To their rendezvous. 

All the woodlands sighing 
Just a hint of YOU. 

Flowers sweetly breathing. 
Insects on the wing. 

Oh — why should I be grieving 
In the spring? 



33 



April — Marching 



ROSEMARY 

Remember you the day I first came down 

To gay New York — an April loiterer? 

And You, all muffled in a waving fur 

Of costly maribou that caped the brown 

Silk, shimmery draperies of your gown, 

Surprised me, as I came with pulse astir 

Swift from the docks — where all the ferries were 

Tooting our gladness to the towering town ? 

New York was ours! the barrel-organ's air, 
The clean, white sparkle of each granite spire 
That reared its head up to the noonday's fire, 
And every murmuring crowded thoroughfare 
Sang of our love — and crowned us with desire 
To seek in Arcady release from care! 



34 



April — Marching 



HAD I HAILED YOU IN THE RAIN 

Had I hailed you in the rain, 
Passing by, 

Would we suffer now such pain, 
You and I ? 

Swift! a sudden glance of fire! 
Through a mist 
Eyes held eyes in mute desire 
Till they kissed. 

I had known you worlds before. 
Love can tell. 
Yet I let you pass my door, 
Knowing well 

We might never meet again, 
You and I, 

Just like that in the rain, 
Passing by. 

Now I'm trying to forego 
All regret. 

Maybe it were better so. 
Dear ! — and yet ? 



35 



April — Marching 



WISTARIA 

A sprig of wistaria hangs from your picture. 
A meaningless token to all but ourselves. 
I doubt if our secret be ever discovered 
By even the smartest of fairies and elves. 

A sprig of wistaria? A touchstone of magic! 
How simple a token can banish despair ! 
Why, Sweet, I believe that this moment I'm hearing 
The click of the gate — and your step on the stair ! 



MUSIC IN THE NIGHT 

Music! low liquid music in the night! 
Tones that return 

Like winging birds, to waken old delight 
From memory's urn. 

Across the tides of melody, your face! 
My cup o'erflows 

As through the dark impenetrable space 
Your vision glows. 



36 



April — Marching 



LOVE'S COMPLETENESS 

Strong as the flail 
Of a gale 
On the seas — 

Deep as Death's power 
In the hour 
That it frees — 

Rich as the gold 
In the mold 
Of a star — 

Free as a bird 
Faintly heard 
From afar — 

Glad as all living, 
All giving, 
All cheer- 
So do I measure my love for you, Dear ! 



37 



April — Marching 



BECAUSE OF YOUR DEAR FAITH 

Because of your dear faith, when days are long, 
And all the starless hours of the night 
Pass, like the lingering echoes of a song, 
Into the silence of the new dawn's light, 
I shall be able with a smile to greet 
The sadness that Life holds, and call it sweet. 

Because of your dear faith, I shall not mind 

The long drear years that hold our souls apart. 

But putting all Grief's vestiges behind, 

I'll dare the battle with a singing heart, 

Filled with the hope which only Love assures 

To prove my worth in God's eyes — and in Yours! 



THE GRAY STONE CHURCH 

The gray stone church I used to know 
In Brooklyn days long, long ago, 
Still stands imposing to the view, 
Facing the broad elmed avenue. 

I would go of tener there to pray 
With others at the end of day. 
But somehow, somehow kneeling there, 
My courage wavers even in prayer, 

For from the choir-loft I see 
Ghost faces smiling down on me — 
And hear ghost voices lingering yet 
In songs the church can not forget. 
38 



A pril — March ing 



BALLYCLAIR 

As I rode into Ballyclair, 
Lo ! all the spring was flinging 
A robe of jonquiled tapestry 
Where fallow meadows lay ; 
And down the little homeland road 
The tanagers were winging, 
Flashing scarlet meteors 
Beneath an April day. 

Hawthorn whiter than the snow, 
And honeysuckled garden ! 
Swift! it seemed a voice called 
Above the kettle's croon : 
"Macushla! Macushla!" 
Till sweeter than God's pardon, 
It purged the homing heart of me, 
And set the world in tune. 



39 



A pril — March ing 



VAGABONDIA 

Twilight is lacing the branches. 
Dusk's on the hill. 
Carry me back, Vagabondia, 
When it is still. 

Back to the glow of the clapboards 
Silvered with stars, 
Back to the croon of the hinges 
Creaking the bars. 

There will be frost on the asters, 
Wind in the leaves, 
Whispers and fluttering footfalls 
Under the eaves, 

Ljittle gray ghosts in the garret — 
You and I know 

Ghosts couldn't leave the old cabin, 
Loving it so. 

We will be ghosts, Vagabondia, 
Ages from now, 

Guarding it — chimney and rafter, 
Gable and bough. 

But for tonight we were better 
Lost in its dream. 
Carry me back, Vagabondia, 
Back to the gleam 

40 



April — Marching 



Of "Rosemary" spangled with moonlight, 
Lintel and sill 

Shedding the rays of her candles 
Over the hill! 



DREAM VINEYARD 

Back within my heart's dream vineyard 

There's a cabin in the lane, 

Where grim Time has hung his cobwebs 

Lightly on the window-pane, 

And the chimneys on the rooftop 

And the shingles on the eaves 

Are as sear and weather-beaten 

As the autumn-showered leaves. 

Yet to me as I roam 
Over memory aisles toward home, 
That little wind-swept cabin 
Wears a halo in the gloam. 

For I see it always studded 
In the glow of setting sun — 
Kettle-croon, out-blowing curtains, 
Hearth-smoke when the day is done, 
Mother standing in the dooryard, 
Clothed in all her simple grace, 
Waiting with the light of welcome 
In the radiance of her face ! 

41 



April — Marching 



How her beauty wraps around me! 
How her truth upholds me yet ! 
How the memory of her quickens 
Little scenes I can't forget — 

Dust-white road and hedge-trimmed ivy, 
Oxen lowing at the plough, 
Bumbling of the bees at noonday, 
Blackbirds trilling from the bough ! 
Is it wonder as I roam 
Over memory aisles toward home, 
That the little wind-swept cabin 
Wears a halo in the gloam? 



April — Marching 



SHIPMATE 

Shipmate ! my shipmate ! ! 

The flying spume is hoary. 

The decks tonight are strewn with stars; 

The tide swings high. 

And the years like ghostly galleons 

Glide by in spectral glory 

From ports of unforgetten spars 

Across a sunset sky. 

Shipmate ! my shipmate ! ! 

Our sails are set for dawning. 

The wind is lashing froth and foam. 

The seagulls swirl. 

And our dreams ride by in pageantry 

With benison and warning 

Like aery pilots drifting home 

Upon a cloud of pearl. 

Shipmate ! my shipmate ! ! 
Forever and forever 
I shall remember, when I'm dead, 
The troths we've made . . . 
To sail beyond the Pleiades, 
Just You and I together, 
When the last port has trumpeted 
The singing stars' crusade. 



43 



April — Marching 



TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM HUFF— G.A.R. 
ON HIS 87TH BIRTHDAY 

There's a white battalion marching 
Through the wilderness and prairie, 
With drums that thunder jubilee 
And banners pricked with scars ; 
And they're flinging songs of triumph 
To the four free winds of heaven, 
And setting camp-fires gleaming 
In an acreage of stars. 



Left foot ! right foot ! rank on rank of khaki ! 
Left foot ! right foot ! rank on rank of blue ! 
Soissons! Cambrai! Metz! andArgonne! 
Richmond! Gettysburg! and Shiloh! 
Young and old, they're swinging nearer, 
Cheering someone — is it You? 



For I've caught their broken phrases — 
"William Lewis Huff, Crusader ! 
Soldier of the great Republic ! 
Woodsman ! Plainsman ! Pioneer ! 
Christian of unswerving duty ! 
Patriot of granite courage ! 
Blazer of old trails to freedom ! 
Patriarch without a peer!" 

44 



A pril — Marc h ing 



And their song is like a whirlwind 

Blowing all of truth before it. 

And their coming is a sacrament of 

Altar wine and bread. 

And their presence, though unbidden, 

Is a benison from Sinai 

That rolls the tides of silence back 

Between the Quick and Dead. 

For it's left foot ! right foot ! 
Sherman! Grant! and Farragut! 
Left foot ! right foot ! 
Hooker! Lee! and Schley! 
Lincoln in his old shawl ! 
Washington and Sheridan! 
Roosevelt with his Eagle Son 
Now are trooping by! 

Singing: 

"Happy Birthday, Comrade! 
Peace and Love and Honor bless you !" 

Singing: 

"God and Glory crown you 
In the gloaming!" 



45 



April — Marching 



THE ROAD TO CAVERLEY 

Christmas in America! 
Goodbye to troop and bivouac! 
My heart has saddled Pegasus 
To ride the stars tonight — 
The white stars of Carchemish 
And Babylon and Nineveh 
That crown the Christian highways 
With their galaxy of light. 



And maybe from their orbits 
I shall find the road to Caverley, 
The little silver river-road 
That winds beyond the sea, 
Where rafters ring with carols 
And windows glow with candles, 
And the War is long forgotten, 
And the flags blow — free ! 



For America is calling, 
Plain and mountain, vale and desert. 
There are altars in her wilderness, 
And anthems in her streams, 
And a deeper love of hearthside 
Since our Legion marched to glory; 
And a kinder love of neighbors, 
And a purer love of dreams. 
46 



April — Marching 



So it's ship me far from Coblenz 
Where my heart can feast in furlough ! 
The latch is up ! the board is set ! 
And the four winds sing 
Of the homing road to Caverley 
That leads to peace and freedom, 
Where comrades walk in brotherhood, 
And Jesus Christ is King! 



THE MOTHER 

"Dead," you say? Nay! nay!! 
Alive as I am now, today. 

There's her tea-pot on the stand 
With her blue cup near at hand, 

Waiting for this afternoon 
When I'll sing her favorite tune 

To her, as she sips her tea 
Oh so very daintily ! 

Souls that learn so well to live 
Never die — but stay, to give. 

So hers like God's benison 
Lingers with us every one. 

All the flowers of her choice 
In the garden breathe her voice. 

47 



April — Marching 



And the sunshine of the place 
Keeps alive her radiant face. 

Hush ! beneath the willow bough 
Where the veery's singing now, 

Ghostly soft her rocker creaks. 
Succurre Miseris! and she speaks 

Gently, sweetly to my youth 
With her tender lips of truth: 

"Faith in love — no more, no less, 
Means my Everlastingness!" 



48 



April — Marching 



CRADLE SONG 

Cradle song and kettle croon 
And whisper of the lilacs! 
Silver plies my needle 
On your wee white hem. 
Dainty as the petals 
In a peach-bloom garden, 
Sweet enough for Mary's Son 
Born in Bethlehem ! 

Here a stitch ! and there a stitch ! 
Threading dreams of wonder, 
Weaving in a tiny tuck 
Homage for a king, 
Doubting if in all the world 
Life possesses magic 
Half so dear and beautiful 
As Babyhood in Spring! 

Babyhood in Spring! and all the earth 

A cloak of samite ! 

God who etches April hills 

Delicate with lace, 

Fashion Thou my Baby's life 

Shining as his raiment, 

Fastening the warp and woof 

Firm with Truth and Grace! 



49 



April — Marching 



SPRING IN THE FACTORY 

Spring has come with all her beauty! 
And it's I would know the meaning 
In the springtime of a cottage 
With a paneled sitting-room, 
And a smiling sweet-faced mother 
Standing by the lintel's greening, 
Where there's not the burr of motors 
Or the thrumming of the loom. 

Spring has come with all her fragrance! 

And it's now I whiff the blowing 

Of the violet-laden breezes 

And the meadow mignonette, 

And the peach-bloom and the clover 

And the cherry-petals snowing, 

Till I quite forget the fibre, 

And the stench of human sweat. 

Spring has come with all her music! 
Bobolink and thrush and veery, 
Fluted whistle of the plowboy 
And the croon of babes at play — 
Sweetness drowning out the treadles 
And the sneers of foremen leery. 
Spring has come ! goodbye to factory ! 
Now my soul takes holiday. 



50 



April — Marching 



BOARD FOR TWO 

Oh I will set my board for two, 

And clean my house today, 

For I am breaking bread with one 

Who has been long away — 

With one who comes a thousand miles, 

Gift-laden to my feast, 

Trailing a wake of rosemary 

From an Arabian East. 

Winged white dreams of yesterday, 
Memories showering like leaves, 
Spring's first robins caroling 
Their welcome from the eaves, 
The kettle's croon, the marsh's tang, 
And toy ships freighted out to sea — 
These, the gifts my guest will bring 
Across Love's aisles to me. 

So I will set my board for two, 
And clean my house today, 
For I am breaking bread with one 
Who has been long away — 
With one who comes by caravan 
Of golden argosy 

Across the bourne of desert years: 
The Child I Used to Be. 



51 



April — Marching 



BOYHOOD'S TOWN 

TO J. T. W. 

Just an argosy of memories ! 
Apple blossoms pink and white 
Falling through the dusk of April 
In the drowsy stir of night ! 
And a gleam of ships at harbor, 
Silver sails against the west! 
And the turquoise Parker River 
Ribboning the Old Town crest. 

Sixty summers since you gypsied 
With your whittled willow lute 
Down the apple-blossomed highway 
In the month of bloom or fruit, 
Scrambling up the hill of vision 
Over bramble bush festoons, 
To re-count the haystacks dotted 
On the shining sandy dunes. 

Oh the Joppa oyster shanties ! 
And the quaint old lighthouse set 
On the reefs beyond Plum Island, 
Winking "wicked" at you yet! 
And the turnpike road to Rowley, 
And the slender steeple spires 
Of the churches silhouetted 
In the summer sunset fires. 
52 



April — Marching 



Sixty years are fleet in passing. 
Sixty more — and you may be 
The most talked of poet-laureate 
Winging through Eternity. 
Singing not so much of heaven, 
Jasper street and harp and crown, 
As of merry mortal memories 
Of your boyhood town : — 

Butterflies and chirping crickets! 

Pollen-laden bumblebees! 

Birds that filled old nests with singing 

In the shade of leafy trees ! 

Ships of vision weighing anchor ! 

Barges at the ocean's brim, 

And the pipes of April fluting 

To a freckled boy named "Jim"! 



53 



A pril — Marching 



THE RETURN 

My heart has heard a knocking 
On its iron-bolted door. 
My soul has heard the whisper 
Of a voice from other years: 
"Ah open ! open ! open wide ! 
And take me in once more 
Who come from golden yesterdays 
To reconcile your tears !" 

A sweet, familiar haunting tone ! 
A hand of magic touch ! 
"Ah open! open! open wide! 
Since once you loved me so. 
I stand a pleading mendicant. 
Ah take me in as such, 
Before the embers deaden 
And the wick burns low." 

My heart has heard a knocking. 

And I've let the exile in. 

My soul has heard a whisper. 

And I've listened to its plea. 

And now my little house of dreams 

Is swept of grief and sin, 

For my lost childhood's self has come 

To live again with me. 



54 



April — Marching 



TO MY GRAND-DADS 

I wonder if they've ever met 

In some Elysiumed haven — 

My grand-dads, Yankee-born and Welsh, 

From Derry and Dunraven; 

And meeting, maybe found my name 

Within their hearts engraven. 

Dear simple, true, old-fashioned men ! 
With hearts no frost could harden, 
Each trailing in his wake a song 
As tender as God's pardon, 
One from his little coffee shop — 
One from his Celtic garden! 



LONELINESS 

Among a million people 

I walked — alone, 

Hemmed in by tower and steeple, 

And walls of stone, 

Lonelier than on prairie, 
Or on the sea, 
For neither God nor fairy 
Could talk with me. 



55 



April — Marching 



OLD SONGS 

Where are they gone ? and will they come 
Comforting, tremulous back to me? 
Soft as the lush of rain in some 
Sweet April Arcady ? 

Like purple violets on a hill, 
Will they come back at hint of spring? 
Oh ! tell me, tell me if you will, 
And ease my hungering! 



AUTUMN 

Yellow light upon the leaves ! 
Hoar frost on the garden lane ! 
Autumn wind among the eaves 
Whistling loud above the rain! 

Love, oh Love, why did you go? 
It was never thus before 
That the autumn chilled me so 
When the wind swept round my door ! 



April — Marching 



INCONSISTENCY 

Death can not leave me lonely 
Or hold strange fears for me, 
For I have found in April 
Love's immortality. 

But should one faith forsake me, 
Or gilded idol fall, 
Then were my whole world ashes 
And life — a thrall ! 



A PRAYER IN APRIL 

Lord, if I find grace today 
In Thy sight, divide, I pray, 
Half my share — no more, no less — 
Of the Spring's white loveliness 
With the halt, the deaf, the blind, 
And the sorrowing of mind. 

Joy of wind and flame of tree, 
Racing clouds in canopy, 
Cresting wave and whirring wing, 
Pulse of every singing thing 
That may fill their senses deep 
With Thy presence e're they sleep. 

Amen. 

57 



April — Marching 



INVOCATION TO THE NEW YEAR 

I have set my words 

To the tune of birds 

To echo o'er crag and lea. 

I have sung my birth 

To the sons of earth. 

Ride on! ride on with me!! 

Ye have trampled me down with your leaden feet, 
But I rise from the ashened pile. 
Ye have scoffed my name in the market street 
Where mingle the rank and file. 

My gifts ye have thrown to the demoned swine. 
My face ye have hid from view. 
But the gifts were free and the gifts were thine, 
And I'm bringing them back to you. 

I'm bringing them back in the mad, glad spring 
Of the lilacing April hours. 
I'm bringing them back on the swallows' wing, 
And in rain-bleached autumn flowers. 



And whether ye erred in days long sped, 
Wherever the trail shall wind, 
This year, the dead shall bury their dead. 
We'll cast no glance behind ! 
58 



April — Marching 



For I've set my words 
To the tune of birds 
To echo o'er crag and lea. 
And I've sung my birth 
To the sons of earth. 
Ride on ! ride on with me ! ! 

Out from the war-doomed chaos where blow 

Bugles that mobilize foe on foe, 

Down from the sodden fields where run 

Rivers too red to catch the sun 

As it pierces a war-cloud there and here, 

Ray upon ray — bier upon bier, 

Oh like a chain-bound slave set free, 

Turn from the past and ride with me ! 

Ride! Ride!! Ride!! 

Till the east and the west are one. 

Ride! Ride!! Ride!! 

Till the infinite fight is done. 

Turn your face from the ebbing tide. 

Past is past and today's your guide. 

Look to your saddle nor turn aside! 

Spurs to your charger ! Ride ! ! ! 



59 



April — Marching 



THE NEW-BORN 

Out of the dusk of centuries I come, 
To make you glad. 
A little naked mendicant of love, 
Bringing from golden pools of mystery 
Laughter and song. 

My body is a lily drenched with sun. 

My heart a crystal goblet 

Brimming with rich nectar 

For your lips to sip. 

My soul a note in tune with all the spheres. 

Guard me with tender wisdom while you may, 
For I am greater than the sea and stars, 
The seasons and the flowers of the field, 
And all the myriad miracles of man. 

Swift! at my birth were blended life and death. 

Creation's song flashed at my coming. 

Now in my hands I hold 

The balance-scale of emptiness and joy. 

Generation upon generation of poets 
And generation upon generation of painters 
Have visioned me with simple reverence 
Out of the glad recesses of their souls. 
60 



April — Marching 



Fairies and elves have they created for my pleasure 

And dream-worlds founded for my joy, 

Till I can follow in my fancy's flight 

A shooting star, a silver drop of rain, 

Or virgin flake of graceful flurrying snow. 

Take the rich gift I offer — 

All beauty and all holiness combined : 

The trinity of love and faith and hope. 

I am God's message sent to mother hearts 
To open them — and let His glory in. 



61 



April — Marching 



MY HEART IS LIKE A HUNGRY BIRD 

My heart is like a hungry bird 
That has no heart to sing, 
Since all the year you've sent no word, 
No thought or anything. 

No happy voice across my aisles 
To cheer my hungering — 
Only the snow-drifts, miles on miles, 
That never knew the spring. 



GYPSY LAD 

Gypsy Lad, whom I have never met, 
Can you not hear me calling plaintively 
Above the April rain and larks' duet, 
And lilac-laden winds of Arcady? 

The trail is rough but oh divinely fair 

That leads me dreaming through the lanes of youth 

1 am so sure you will be waiting there 

When I have crossed the border-land to Truth. 

I am so sure now as I sing alone, 
That in some far-off blossoming of May 
You'll hear my song — You whom I've never met, 
And fill my hunger in your glad wild way. 
62 



April — Marching 



CHASTISEMENT 

I did not know, Dear Heart. 

I did not know 

That Love, mere Love 

Could pain one so. 

Nor that in doubly 

Darkened ways 

I should go exiled 

All my days! 

I close my eyes — 
And memories bring 
The pressure of your lips 
That cling ! 
June memories 
Of stars and night, 
And crushing arms 
That hold me tight! 

Now I must wait 
The long years through 
In agony 
Of wanting you. 
I who had thought 
Mere Love a game, 
Until war woke me 
To my shame! 



63 



April — Marching 



IN GREENWICH VILLAGE 
1918 

Sometimes at sunset, coming through the square, 
In the cold splendor of a winter's day, 
I find myself half-wondering in play 
If I shall find you at our window there, 
Waiting my coming — doubting still the truth 
War woke me to last April when you went — 
And Greenwich Village sped your regiment. 
The law of battle is unkind to youth ! 

Now when before the empty hearth I sit 
And close my eyes, the deadened ashes, Dear, 
Flare like red poppies, magically lit 
By the warm kiss of sunny atmosphere. 
Cool fingers o'er my fevered eyelids flit — 
And with the breath of poppies, you are near ! 



64 



April — Marching 



TO A WAR TIME STRIKER 
(From a Crippled Soldier on Furlough) 



You can call me rampant moralist and war-mad 

preaching freak, 
A brainless financier and a butter-in of law, 
But I'd rather be myself, at that, than show the 

yellow streak 
Of him who calls a strike on work that's pushing on 

the war. 
For I'm used to fighting soldiers, not the kind who 

feed their purse, 
And grouch at weary carcasses and battle by the 

clock. 
I come from flaming Flanders where the unforgiven 

curse 
Is the piker whose desertion proves his country's 

stumbling-block. 

So ship me back to the trenches 
Behind me the sand-bag's rim, 
Where there's blood and mud in stenching flood 
Under the rocket's glare, 
And men who are men are fighting, 
Loyal and staunch and grim, 
Scorning to quit till they've done their bit 
In championing Right "out there." 
65 



April — Marching 



There's a plaguy sight of difference according to 

battle code 
Between the plain deserter-guy who "funks" it for 

the Huns 
And him at home who crumples up beneath war's 

extra load, 
Calling a strike that ties up work on ships or clothes 

or guns, 
Putting a traitor's service-price on duty to his flag, 
Commercializing faith to God and free humanity, 
And daring in his idle sloth with pompousness to 

brag 
A kinship with his valiant brothers fighting oversea. 

So ship me back to the trenches 
'Neath the red rain's avalanche, 
Where the cry "More pay and an eight-hour 

day" 
Will faint in the bugle's call, 
And men who are men are dying, 
Glad of the privileged chance 
To prove the worth of their soldier birth 
In a Common Cause for All ! 



66 



A pril — Marc h ing 



It is pleasanter here in the factories and the ship- 
yards and the mills 

Than it is out there in the dug-outs where the rats 
and the lice abound, — 

For there isn't the carnaged chaos and the horror- 
shaken thrills 

Of the death-fumed gas or the bloody wire or the 
mangled corpse-strewn ground. 

Yet I'd rather be there in the melee, a cog in the 
great machine, 

I'd rather brave death a thousand times in the 
brunt of the foe's advance, 

Than play the role of the striker here at a time when 
my act might mean 

Defeat for the lads who are holding our line in the 
furnaced hell of France. 

So ship me back to the trenches, 
Where the lure of a higher law 
Than greed and pelf and Ego self 
Is ruling the dreams of youth. 
Where life is seen at its crudest, 
Bleeding and bruised and raw, 
But strong and wise through the sacrifice 
Of men who have died for Truth ! 



67 



April — Marching 



FOR KING AND COUNTRY 

Boom ! Boom ! 

Through fields dyed red, 

Past the sound of women's weeping, 

On! until the last has bled 

From the foul-jawed cannon's reaping, 

Father, brother, husband, son, 

In the murky trenches lying, 

Cold and stark, when day is done, 

For King and Country dying. 

Boom ! Boom ! 
The dank mists rise 
On the youngest-born recruiting. 
Joy a'glow from lips and eyes 
Through their gay disputing. 
How the fife and trumpet thrill ! 
What care they for crimson sating? 
Glad and resolute they drill 
For King and Country waiting. 

Boom ! Boom ! 
Oh shame to spend 
Blood that pulses from a nation! 
Boom ! oh wanton crime to rend 
From a hungry child its ration ! 
Babes and children underfed, 
Not a crust of bread for halving! 
68 



April — Marching 



Sucklings to the still-born dead, 
For King and Country starving. 

Boom! 

The distant hills loom black. 

Now there's worse than death foreboding. 

War brides tremble on the rack 

Of a lustful despot's goading. 

Holy Mother ! purge their shame ! 

They must bear for cannon's feeding 

Soldier sons without a name, 

For King and Country breeding. 

King and Country! — Country, King! 
When this pentecost of sorrow 
Gleaned from temporal gluttoning 
Shall have slaked itself tomorrow, 
There will still be left, unspent, 
Strong in habit, undismaying, 
Old, old women, worn and bent, 
For King and Country praying! 



THE WHIRLWIND 

The field is stubble tonight, 
Parched and withered in harvest. 
Seared from the blast of the fiery cannon. 
Ghostly soft, it billows rough in the moonlight. 

69 



April — Marching 



The ground is decked with the limp forms 
Of a thousand corpses. 
They mock at the moon's paleness 
And warm the earth with their blood. 
But the breath of their bodies is gone, 
Snuffed out by the whirlwind. 

When dawn comes, the sun will hunger 

For the light of their laughing eyes 

And the shout of their singing voices. 

And the red poppies that kiss their silent faces 

Will miss, when the bugle calls, 
The crunch of their heavy marching 
Through the wheat. 



AN UNKNOWN GRAVE 

Unmourned, unclaimed, unrecognized by all, 
Within his grave 

He lies, with no dear comrade near to call 
His young heart brave. 

And yet above his unmarked resting place 
A skylark wings 

In upward flight, and from ethereal space 
His requiem sings: 

"Who dies in France for freedom, freedom gains 
Unchained, unfurled. 

His monument war's flaming poppied lanes. 
His grave the world !" 

70 



April — Marching 



THE VOLUNTEER 

"It isn't your war," I told the lad, 
When that flame-wraithed August came. 
"It isn't your fault if the Kaiser's mad, 
And his gray hordes filched with shame. 
Stay home and harvest the golden wheat, 
And answer the hunter's call, 
For the wilds of the west are safe and sweet, 
And why should you leave it all ?" 

Now all I have left are his fishing rods, 

His gun and his hunting net, 

And his Billiken god who sits and nods 

At a bust of Lafayette, 

And his eloquent letters in boyish hand, 

Acclaiming with happy boast 

His regiment's part in the glorious stand 

Of Kitchener's fighting host. 

And I who said that it wasn't his war — 

It's proud I am of him now 

For the call he heard and the light he saw, 

And the pledge he made — and his vow. 

And though he's asleep in the hills of France, 

At peace from the flame and roar, 

I know when the last drum sounds "advance" 

He will lead his men once more ! 



71 



April — Marching 



THE SINGING SERGEANT 

We saw them carry his stretcher in 

Under a hail of fire. 

His blood was smearing the ground they trod 

Red as the poppies' bloom. 

But there wasn't a chance in the hell-mad din, 

A moment, to inquire — 

Charging with bayonet-point and sword — 

Of the singing sergeant's doom. 

So we "carried on" like avenging hounds 

And "strafed" the Boches under. 

It was like the singing sergeant's voice 

Kept trumpeting the way 

Through cursing sounds of human mounds, 

And Gothas spitting thunder. 

It made the saints of heaven rejoice — 

The way we made them pay. 

And this we learned in our wild advance, 

Where the red rain was falling, 

Wondering how was our sergeant chum, 

And whether his race was through: 

They could bury him deep in the fields of France, 

But his soul would bide our calling, 

Leading us on till Kingdom Come, 

And the last drum beat tattoo. 

For it isn't the body that turns the tide, 
But the soldier spirit in it. 
72 



April— Marching 



So — when we found him behind the line, 

Like a sepulchred bandaged ghost, 

It wasn't the death in his face we spied, 

Palloring more each minute, 

But something of life we couldn't define, 

Like the flame of a spirit-host. 

It was like he was teaching the stars their place, 

Flinging the dark defiance. 

For sudden, " 'oo's dead?" he challenged us then. 

"Come! pipe us a chune you've learned, 

To prove the pep of the Celtic race, and 

The h'army's just reliance 

In singin' men's bein' fightin' men, 

And death but a furlough earned." 

Then up we drew to the sergeant's cot, 

And soft our voices blended : 

"The Son of God goes forth to war, 

A kingly crown to gain " 

It was a hymn we'd sung a lot, 
When France was first defended. 
"His blood-red banner streams afar. 
Who follows in His train f" 

" 'oo follows?" — quick! with courage girds — 

The pipes of April fluting. 

The singing sergeant, clear and slow, 

Wound up the martial strain, 

And plucky came his last words, 

With bandaged hand saluting, 

" 'oo patient bears 'is cross below 

'e follows in J is train!" 

73 



April — Marching 



IN THE NIGHT 

Often when the autumn rain 
Beat against the window-pane, 
And the cold gust driving fast 
Shook the shutters with its blast, 

I would snuggle to your breast 
Like a frightened bird, oppressed, 
Till the pressure of your arms 
Crushed out all my dread alarms. 

Then your finger-tips would trace 
Gently, lightly o'er my face, 
And your breath like April air 
Stir the tangles of my hair. 

Heart to heart throbbed. Not a word 
Broke our quietude — nor stirred 
But my fear, all unexpressed, 
War would claim you with the rest. 

Haven free from rock or reef, 
Silence lulling past belief, 
Let me come once more, once more, 
When the wind howls round the door. 

Let my frozen spirit claim 
Warmth from heaven's altar-flame, 
Where your love will vigil keep, 
Till I sleep— till I sleep ! 

74 



April— Marching 



WAR CHRISTMAS— 1915 

Dyed in the hue of more than holly's red, 
War Christmas breaks upon a world reviled 
With mammon lust and hate unreconciled 
Over the ranks of Europe's slaughtered dead. 
Music is silenced. Peace and joy are sped. 
And where the Magi seek the Holy Child, 
They find an empty manger sore defiled, 
And Christ bowed o'er it with a thorn-crowned 
head. 

Far from the east sound armies' marching hosts, 
The blare of bugles and the cannons' roar, 
The hollow rap of hunger on the door, 
And wailing dirges of a billion ghosts. 
Christmas is dead ! Nor love nor pity stills 
The anguished cries from Europe's calvaried hills. 



75 



A pril — Marching 



LA PANNE 

Outside La Panne stretched dreary mile on mile, 
Villas agleam with red and yellow tile, 
Set on the sands at random, carelessly, 
While ever nearer, nearer boomed the sea, 
Washing with ebb and flow its flood of salt 
Upon the dunes with every tidal halt. 

La Panne, the royal village, in its plight 
A ruin, yet a memorable sight! 

Oh time will come when all the world will sing 

Of Belgians at this seacoast hungering 

A winter through, their army two-thirds spent, 

Their soldier-king heading his regiment, 

Himself sore wounded — and their gracious queen 

Forced when the suffering grew too keen, 

To pawn her jewels for her soldiers' bread. 

And time will come when Belgium's flaming red 
Of baptism will give her power to raise 
The crumbled altars of her former days, 
And teach the world a nation's greatness rests 
Not in her armament of temporal quests, 
But in her power to keep her soul so free 
That it can claim with Christ's identity. 



76 



April — Marching 



THE RED CROSS 

I saw them pass among the littered dead, 
Poet and peasant, marchioness and priest, 
A cosmic army, cowering the beast 
Of battle with their Christ-like tread. 
Their sign — the brassard with its cross of red. 
The vision of them, when the guns had ceased, 
Was like a sudden sunrise in the east, 
Mocking the memory of a storm just sped. 

Like peace astride the wonder of a day, 
Riding with spur from out night's leaden dross, 
They came to save what guns had failed to slay. 
One flag! one creed! one goal! to bear their cross 
Of Christian mercy through the jaws of hell. 

PRAYER FOR CHRISTMAS— 1914 

Just for today, O Lord of Hosts, we ask 
That peace of Christian mercy rule Thy seas, 
That guns be silenced from their carnaged task, 
And foe meet foe in canceled enmities. 

Just for today, God of our Fathers' might, 
Lead to Thine altars crumbled and defiled 
Thy soldier-heroes by the Bethlehem light, 
That in their armistice they find Thy child. 

With more than holly are Thy fields dyed red. 
With more than hunger stand Thy folds at bay. 
Yet by Thy cross, we will not count our dead 
If Thou wilt rule the God of All today. 

Amen. 
77 



April — Marching 



GOD'S GHOST 

God's ghost moves through a shattered host. 
The captains raise their song: 
"Now God is Might and champions Right 
Against Oppression's wrong." 

God's ghost moves through a shattered host — 
A cosmic force abroad. 
In vain, kings mould for power and gold 
A racial demi-god. 

From coast to coast through curse and boast 
Where Slav and Teuton reel, 
Drunk from the flood of human blood, 
And crush God under heel, 

The ghost moves through each shattered host, 
Too sad to smite or shield — 
While streams flow red — and Christ lies dead 
On every sodden field! 



78 



April — Marching 



A YANKEE PRIVATE SPEAKS 

Oh war is a marvelous leveling game, 

And I wouldn't have missed this chance 

Of taking my place when the summons came 

In the fighting ranks of France, 

To bivouac under a flame-shot sky 

With men of a world new-made, 

Who challenge and battle and jest and die 

In the march of a great crusade. 



I wonder what we will ever do 
When the old life claims us back, 
Yank and Tommie and French Poilu, 
Bound to the beaten track. 
I wonder will pals be the same pals then 
As they are in the trenches here, 
And if I'll find Jim, by the test of men, 
Still brother and chum and peer. 



Jim, who only twelve months ago 
Was wasting his days in play, 
Spending a million a year or so, 
And quaffing his life away, 
Wobbling home at morning's stir 
With the grouch of a chronic fop, 
And cursing at me, his dad's chauffeur, 
For letting his trotters flop. 

79 



April — Marching 



But that's all past. Oh war's the thing! 
It's tinker and millionaire, 
Butcher and baker and underling, 
Cut on the self-same square, 
Rigged in the self-same khaki shirt, 
Fed on the self-same chow, 
Spewed with the self-same blood and dirt, 
Pledged to the self-same vow. 

And Jim and me on the self-same plane, 

Leveled by war's queer spell, 

Pals to the death, through joy and pain, 

Heaven and flaming hell — 

A world removed from the narrow life 

Of squabbling sects and creeds, 

Where men are judged in a farcial strife 

By chattels instead of deeds. 

So war's the thing! I claim once more, 

When you take it with Jim and me, 

Drafted as "65354" and "65353," 

With never a hint for remembrancer 

Here where the rockets flare, 

That once I was known as his dad's chauffeur, 

And Jim as a millionaire! 



80 



April — Marching 



THE LANCERS OF LOUVAIN 

There's a slow and rhythmic clattering 

Of cavalry's shod feet. 

We can see the Belgian standards drawing near. 

There's a singing, singing, singing 

Down a Belgian seacoast street, 

And a ring of loud hosannas, cheer on cheer. 

Oh you scarce can hear the music 

Of their piccolo and fife 

For our loud, ecstatic jubilation strain, 

As we look upon their dwindled ranks, 

Returning from the strife — 

The dashing doughty Lancers of Louvain ! 

Mark their caprioling chargers! 

How their blooded nostrils flare! 

Mark the troopers ! how they ride with backs erect ! 

Invulnerable, man and beast, 

To ravishing despair, 

Riding, riding, ever riding, 

Like the God of Hosts' elect. 

With the valiant light of ages 

Smouldering in their eagle eyes, 

And their visages all battle-seared with scars, 

Dying, they will pay the blood-price 

For their country's sacrifice — 

For Ix)uvain laid low in ashes 'neath the stars. 



81 



April — Marching 



There's a marching, marching, marching 

Down a Belgian seacoast street, 

By the waters as the sun swings low. 

And the fainter, fainter echo 

Of their cavalry's shod feet 

Leaves our writhing spirits crucified in woe. 

They are riding on to battle, 

Far away where fields are red. 

O God, in Thy great mercy, ease our pain, 

And we'll worship at Thine altars 

Till their last recruits have bled 

For the gold unsullied glory of Louvain. 



82 



April — Marching 



CHATEAU-THIERRY 

Tramping down the dusty roads 
Between the bronzing wheat fields, 
Khaki-clad and mirth-mad, 
Laughing all the way, 
With sixty pound of outfit — 
Helmet-hats and gas-shields — 
Marching and manceuvering 
As though they found it play! 



Weary ? not a bit of it ! 
Hope was high ahead of them! 
Treading past the meadowed plains 
Of poppy-crimsoned sheen, 
Shouting: "Bill, we're coming! 
So set your guns to thrumming, 
For you'll meet in Chateau-Thierry 
The United States Marine!" 

None could guess who saw them pass 
They were not "seasoned shock-troops, 
Flinging zest and merry jest 
With every martial stride. 
Yankee to the core of them ! 
Marching past the River loops, 
Bound for Chateau-Thierry 
On the south Marne side! 
83 



April — Marching 



And there they made their stand 
Above a row of white-roofed houses, 
Left amid the ruins now 
That mark their battle-graves, 
Holding back the powers, 
For thirteen hell-flamed hours, 
Of the sweeping, irresistible 
Fiend-f uried German waves ! 

I wonder in the years to come 

Will history record them 

With pride, for having turned the tide 

In rolling back the Huns, 

There in Chateau-Thierry 

Where the saviored French now laud them, 

Guarding the Paris Highway 

With their barricade of guns! 

Fearless and redoubtable! 

Young and gay and heart-free ! 

Girded with the faith of France, 

Faces to the light, 

In their strength uniting — 

Glorious in their smiting — 

Viking and Crusader, 

And Troubadour and Knight! 



84 



April— Marching 



RED EASTER 

This is a spring that has no Easter day. 
Even the little children must be told 
That all the beauty of the world is sold, 
And in the grim gray ranks of War's array 
Christ's carols turn to knells of loud dismay. 
For women's tears, nor kingly power nor gold 
Can resurrect those forms the trenches hold. 

Ah children, murmur softly at your play, 

Lest your sweet mirth like poisoned darts be sped 

Swift to the widowed mother-hearts, reviled 

Twice over as they clasp their still-bom dead. 

Pray, children, for the world's unreconciled. 

You are our only lilies undefiled. 

The others are incarnadined too red. 



85 



April — Marching 



LINEN MUSK 

When London lanes are thrumming 
With the quickening of spring, 
And London air is humming 
With the lilt of larks on wing, 
I see the hawkers coming 
And I hear the hawkers sing: 

"Linen musk! Linen musk!" 
Sweet as April air! 
"Linen musk! linen musk!" 
Clean and fresh and fair! 
Pungent scent of spices, 
Dreams of purple dusk! 
Down the pleached alleys 
Hawking linen musk! 

There is no time for dreaming 
On a carnaged battle-plain — 
Yet somehow, through the gleaming 
Of the batteries' red rain 
I see the home hills teeming 
With English spring again! 

And the hawkers cry: "Linen musk!' 
Sweet as April air. 
"Linen musk! linen musk!" 
Clean and fresh and fair! 
Pungent scent of spices, 
Dreams of purple dusk! 
Through the fields of Flanders 
Trailing linen musk! 
86 



April — Marching 



RESIGNATION 

Last night the long, long dreaded message came, 
Cabled from France, while I was in your room, 
Smoothing your clothes; fingering in the gloom 
Dear trophies of your boyhood : book and game, 
Trumpet and drum and tarnished picture-frame 
Holding your hero — Kitchener of Khartoum — 
Gone like yourself, martyr of battle-doom, 
On the long furlough, past the sunset's flame. 



And now some corner of a Flemish field 

Has wrapped you in its poppied sepulchre, 

Hiding with glowing beauty every scar. 

All Flanders is your grave. And you the yield 

I give with pride to the great Harvester, 

Bright as the sun- gold of your service-star. 



PALM SUNDAY IN THE TRENCHES 

Jesus, Jesus, Carpenter's Son, 
Which way has the battle run ? 

My head is hurt and I can not see. 

There's a curious smoke round this sycamore tree, 

87 



April — Marching 



Where I climbed as soon as the cannon ceased 
To watch you pass on your milk-white beast. 

There is no day of Palms for them. 
They never heard of Jerusalem. 

Jesus, Jesus, Master! Friend! 

Are you coming soon to heal and mend ? 

The long white road is thickly lined. 
There never were so many maimed and blind 

Waiting to watch you pass, like me 
Proud of your King's identity. 

Friend and foe on the grim divide — 
So many times are you crucified. 

Jesus, Jesus, Nazarite! 

Touch your thumbs to my dimming sight ! 

Quick ! your arms ! Enfold me now ! 
I am falling from the sycamore bough. 

Day of Palms! and roadside strewn 
With sheaf-like bodies beneath the noon! 

I'm glad — my mother — told me of you, 
Jesus of Nazareth, Comrade true! 



88 



April — Marching 



BEN ARAD 

A guard of troopers rode at dawn of day 

Out through the open portals of Life's flame. 

And gay Ben Arad led them on their way 

To win their crown of joy through wealth and fame. 

By dint of savageness that courted strife 
Smouldering deep within each Arab heart, 
They won in time the glint they thought was life, 
Only to find that joy was not a part. 

At last they journeyed homeward, bent and old, 
With spirits broken and with hearts demure. 
But old Ben Arad, so the story's told, 
Went forth again, alone, to feed the poor. 

And give and serve, unquestioning the cost, 
Finding thereby the joy the others lost. 



ROYALTY 

Silver and gold have I none. 
Station nor kin nor fame. 
All I possess are the Sun, 
Beauty and Song and Flame. 

Over my head the Stars, 
Under my feet the Sod! 
Yet am I richer than Czars 
And free as a God! 

89 



April — Marching 



THE CITY 

Yesterday even I hated your power, 

And cowered in fright from your lust. 

I prayed that your pinnacled towers might totter 

And crumble your buildings to dust. 

I turned from the din of your garrulous pavements 

O'er-teeming with traffic and drays, 

And thought of you only as sullen and sordid, 

And seething in human affrays. 

Then somewhere I found myself shrouded in stillness 

Remote from the hubbub of life, 

Where flowers and forests and bird-notes and 

breezes 
Afforded reprieve from your strife. 
I walked on a carpet of mosses and lichens. 
I lifted my eyes to the sky. 

But my soul was not sated with beauty or silence. 
I wanted my brethren by. 

The heart of me yearned for your passionate 

breathing, 
O City of dizzying height ! 
For your cruel demanding, unpitying cry 
That resounds in the deep of the night. 

strange and alluring, ineffable spirit ! 
My dominant pride is o'erthrown. 

1 had rather be slaved with your publican million 
Than enter Christ's kingdom — alone. 

90 



April — Marching 



PHARISEE 

All the fashion thoroughfares 
Are glittered with your show. 
Break a path — You Publicans! 
For their gilded file. 
Ermine-trimmed, immaculate, 
With artificial glow 
Crimsoning their cruel lips 
Curved in mocking smile. 

Pharisee! O Pharisee! are you not afraid 
For the unwashed ragged soul under your 
brocade? 

Lily hands that never work! 

Eyes that never cry! 

Bodies strong and beautiful 

As the Greeks of old ! 

Every day Beelzebub reviews you 

Passing by. 

While the puny underlings 

Die to coin you gold. 

Pharisee! O Pharisee! at the final knell 
What can save your silly soul from the blast 
of hell? 

Vindicate your selfishness. 
Within these ample states 

91 



April — Marching 



Have you gleaned your yellow hoard 

Honestly and fair? 

Have you paid for servitude 

Decent living rates? 

Or let your toilers rot and starve 

For want of Christian care. 

Pharisee! O Pharisee! guard against the tolls 
You will be held answerable for in murdered 
souls. 

Though your shallow hearts be free 

From conscious lust and greed. 

Though you never waste your time 

In low debauchering, 

Yet the while you worship God 

With Euphuistic creed, 

What about His children 

On your highways, hungering? 

Pharisee! O Pharisee! jewels, silk and lace 
Pass through mangled bleeding hands ere they 
lend you grace! 

All your tinsled ornaments 
And all your filigree, 
All your idle vaunting 
Of a vermin-eaten power 
Cost the world a billion souls 
In woe and harlotry. 

O Pharisee! but you shall pay 
The price — in Judgment-Hour! 
92 



April — Marching 



MAGDALENE 

She'd never known the larks' call 

Trilling through the dawning, 

Or plucked the nodding poppy buds 

Crimsoning the wheat. 

She'd never learned the simplest prayer, 

Or heard the mildest warning 

Of tempest-strong temptations 

She would some day have to meet. 



She who dreamed of better things 

Saw her railers offer 

Jagged stones for leavened bread, 

Vinegar for wine. 

Society, the arrogant, the merciless, 

The proper, 

Smothered in her stunted soul 

All hint of the Divine. 



To pay in pain her sin's price 
She bowed beneath the goading 
Of dreary prison servitude, 
Branding deep as fire ! 
She, the luckless hungerer, 
So careless to foreboding, 
Alive to every tingling pulse 
Of passionate desire. 

93 



April — Marching 



And now her sister Magdalenes 
Are calling to her — calling 
Softlier and kindlier 
Than all the saints of God, 
Heedless of the gray dawn, 
Singing, laughing, brawling, 
Down the leery lane of lies 
The Pharisees have trod. 



CELIA 

She knew the music of the spheres. 
She knew the whisper of the trees. 
And in her sleep at times her soul 
Voiced saddest threnodies 
To spring and sylvan song and lute, 
And love, sown over-late for fruit. 

It may be I should not have heard 

Her blessed sleep confessionals. 

It may be I should not have shared 

With her the stars' recessionals. 

Yet through their light I've found in prayer 

Her sacrificial altars there ! 



94 



April — Marching 



SLIVERS 

Hippodrome Clown 

Crowned with a name that only he 

Of all his kind could bear with grace, 

Unspoiled by cheap publicity 

That conned his name from place to place, 

He played the clumsy fool, and hid 

So well beneath his painted smile 

A heart that all the Fates had chid, 

The world looked on and laughed the while. 

Laughed till his mimic days were done, 
Till swift and tragically late, 
It recognized in Thalia's son 
The elements that made him great. 
But now — for this is life — his worth 
That reached the depths of those who see 
Will loud be sung about the earth 
In immemorial threnody. 

A child of freedom-loving ways, 

A youth who could not offer less 

Than perfect balance all his days 

Of truth and human tenderness. 

A prince of clowns ! whose memory wakes 

So many dreams of fun again 

That through our tears the laughter breaks 

Like summer sunshine through the rain. 

95 



April — Marching 



IN MEMORIAM 

Her spirit lives and moves among us still, 
Bringing to each who claimed her once as friend 
The comfort now of knowing her short life 
Was such a glorious means to a great end. 

We can not count her length of life by years. 
Her days are measured by the lasting good 
Which silently but surely she performed 
In deeds reflecting noble womanhood. 

A sudden gust may smite a half-blown rose 
And strew its petals on the garden bed. 
The fragrance stays. With every gentle breeze 
We quaff its perfume though the rose is dead. 

So we, her friends, whom she has left behind, 
Still feel her living presence ever near — 
A scented zephyr from the aisles of time 
To sweep our gardened memories with cheer. 



TO CHARLES FROHMAN 

Your work is done. And yet across the space 
The sighing sea-waves seem to lisp your name 
Softly with awe, as conscious of your fame, 
They feared to stir the vengers of your race. 
For you were doomed by treacherous disgrace 
That sent the breach through Lusitania's frame 
To die, before a single warning came — 
You who were born to meet death face to face ! 
96 



April — Marching 



Yet, now, for all death's issues, you are ours ! 
The stage, more plastic, lies within your reach, 
Purged by your truth, and tempered by your powers 
The players pass before the waiting throng 
Sustained as if your lips had still the speech 
To tune their effort into endless song. 



LINCOLN 

He came when statesmen had forgot 
How common was the human lot, 
And just, equality — and hot 
Grim war and hate; 
Or what made law divine and what 
Made nations great! 

Like one who, purged of sham and fears, 

Still fronts the sun, though anguished years 

Are darkening in a vale of tears 

His span of life, 

For all that Freedom pioneers 

He stemmed the strife. 

So strong ! so meek ! through all the lanes 
Of garnered life his memory reigns 
Sweet as a psalm. And naught remains 
But what empowers 
Truth's deep unutterable gains 
Which he made ours. 

97 



April — Marching 



DOG-PAL 

You can't have gone so very far. 
It seems you must be hidin'. 
Maybe you've chased a shootin' star 
Or bayed the moon's deridin'. 

You crazy little wild hound-pup ! 

All night I've been hallooin' 

And whistlin' for you ! There's your cup, 

And oatmeal gruel stewin', — 

Your collar hangin' from the shelf 
All scratched from furious itchin', 
So sated with your doggish self, 
It's smellin' up the kitchen! 

And over by the pantry door — 
Your shredded crimson pillow, 
White pokin' through the holes you tore 
The day I used the willow. 

It can't be you have gone for good! 
It seems you must be playin' 
Some naughty trick of puppyhood 
On me for my dismayin'. 

A half-chewed shoe, a stolen chop, 
A new-uprooted garden, 
A murdered cat or scratched-up crop 
Are acts I well might pardon. 
98 



April — Marching 



But never comin' home again 
Through game- and flshin' season, 
Trailin' the hills in sun or rain, 
Is nothin' short of treason! 

It's sheer ungratefulness! It's sin 
That sets my heart to achin' 
With missin' of you barkin' in, 
Your long, straight tail-piece shakin' 

With missin' of you rushin' on, 
Ears forward bent, eyes gleamin' — 
Just you and me, at gypsy dawn, 
With the red sunrise streamin' ! 

Sure you can't have gone so far! 
It seems you must be hidin' ! 
Maybe you've chased a shootin' star 
Or bayed the moon's deridin'. 

But O Dog-Pal, where'er you are, 
My love, my love's abidin'! 



99 



April — Marching 



A BIRDCAGE COMEDY 

I heard you singing in your tarnished cage 

For the song's sake, not the pittance wage 

That mortals sing for. You had naught to gain 

Cooped in your narrow prison. Yet you trilled 

Sweet as a skylark till your rapture filled 

The tawdry store behind the window-pane. 

Listening, I wondered if your lyric soul 
Dreamed, if indeed birds can, of sunny hours 
And joyous winging among tropic flowers 
Where carking capture never pierced its dole. 

Perhaps beyond the bondage of your wires 
You joined your warble to the lilting choirs 
Of happier birds, perched on some tangled branch 
Of forest-jungle, confident and free, 

Waking the treetops with mad minstrelsy. 
At least, as glad as theirs your avalanche 
Of merry carols fell. Who watched you hop 
From perch to perch in caged imprisonment 
Seemed feign to look upon your strange content 
As but a comic trifle of the shop. 



IOO 



April— Marching 



MOTHER O' MINE 

Yours is the face that always smiled 
With virgin sweetness through its tears, 
And silvered like a halo light 
The wake of all my childhood's years, 
Mother o' mine. 

Yours is the heart where warmth so burned 
With passion's holy love of truth, 
That once to feel its beating served 
To temper all my wayward youth, 
Mother o' mine. 

Yours is the soul — ah purging grace! 
That sweetens still my days with good, 
Till even in my dreams I link 
God with your sacred motherhood, 
Mother o' mine! 



TRIBUTE TO THE SPIRIT OF MOTHER- 
HOOD 

O Mother, through your spirit's dear returning 
You keep us now as pure as in that spring 
When from your sacred lips we took the learning 
That changed our seed-time to first blossoming. 



April — Marching 



O Mother, in your spirit's purging fire 
Our souls as tempered are as in that June 
When toward the distant goals of our desire 
You sent us forth to keep the world in tune. 

Oh, through the wealth of your full harvest's 

reaping 
Our joy so deepens that when day unfurls 
Her crimson dawn, and wakes the east from 

sleeping, 
Our eyes can smile and change their tears to pearls. 

Mother, we feel you watch your children weaving 
Out of your strands of life a mesh of gold, 
Weaving the memories, that past all believing, 
Brighten the meaning of your days untold. 

The world grows calm. Through your soul's dear 

returning 
The woodnotes throb more softly in the night. 
The red rose burgeons with a deeper burning 
And birdlings gentlier fold their distant flight. 

Eternal Mother! ever, ever gazing 
On us, your children, from your quiet rest, 
Your radiant smile has set the pathway blazing 
That leads the Pilgrim toward the purple west. 



April — Marching 



"TRAUMEREI" 

A cello's carol calls me in the dark. 

I'm back at Gallironti's where we dined, 

Keen for a gypsy-free Bohemian lark, 

Where all the tables should be richly wined. 

I see around me faces deeply lined — 

Crude painted faces; lazy opiate eyes, 

And hear their empty mocking mirth that lies! 

Above the clinking glasses and the din 

Of screeching ragtime, haunting, floats the tune 

Of tender "Traumerei" — played by a thin, 

Half-crazy, famished minstrel of the moon. 

A hint of heaven! forgotten all too soon. 

Your eyes seek mine, and through a silvering mist 

Opens your soul and call my own to tryst. 

And now those same notes reach me in the dark! 

I'm back at Gallironti's where we dined, 

Keen for a gypsy-free Bohemian lark, 

Where all the tables should be richly wined. 

Yet not of these does "Traumerei" remind. 

Dear Love, I only see your seeking eyes 

That hold my own in fields of Paradise ! 



103 



April — Marching 



SOFT IN THE APRIL DUSK 

Soft in the April dusk, 
Fragrant and fair, 
Lilies and lilac-musk 
Scenting the air, 
Comes the dear face of her, 
Crowning lost dreams. 
Ah ! but the grace of her 
Quickens, it seems, 
Swifter than April hours 
Sun-kissed with light, 
Surer than silver showers 
Misting the night, 
All the dear garden flowers — 
Once, our delight! 

Glad-souled the eyes of her 

Challenge my fears. 

Rich-toned the voice of her 

Comforts and cheers. 

Rose-soft the lips of her 

Kiss back my tears. 

Thus through my visioning, 

Tender and sweet, 

Comes she — a bird on wing — 

Sudden and fleet, 

Making my winnowing years more complete. 



104 



April — Marching 



HERO WORSHIP 

I question neither "where" nor "why" 
I only know He's gone, 
Swift as a rainbow from the sky 
Where God's glory shone. 

And now I'll take the trail He lit 
Where silver sunsets gleamed, 
Wiser for having loved a bit, 
Gladder for having dreamed. 

What if I never glanced His sight, 
Or heard His footfall's stir? 
Must one be born a Canaanite 
To be a worshipper? 



105 



April — Marching 



ORTHODOXY 

They told me I should seek the grail 
At the white surpliced chancel-rail, 
Kneeling in prayer, with thought intent 
Upon the blessed sacrament. 

So orthodox were they — and I, 

A child whose freedom touched the sky! 

Swift to the desert then I turned 

And sought God where the white sands burned. 

I found Him comrade-like and wise. 

I found the Grail-Cup in His eyes, 

And drank deep of its wine. 

"All roads lead to Palestine" 
God said. 

"But neither You nor They 
Can make the journey in a day." 



106 



April— Marching 



IDENTITY 

I can not wear a humble mien 

Or walk a humble mile, 

Who know the ways of things unseen 

And court the red dawn's smile. 

My soul is sister to the sky. 
My heart — to earth and sea. 
A thousand years may tiptoe by 
And leave no mark on me, 

Who hold a lease on loveliness, 
A kinship with the stars, 
And cloak my dreams in royal dress 
When Sleep lets down the bars. 



107 



A pril — Marc king 



YOUTH'S REQUIEM 

What a comrade Youth has been 
All the blossomy way. 
Now I call my frail dreams in 
From their maiden play. 

Dreams of life that woven are 
On a flaming loom, 
Threaded to a silver star, 
Warp and woof a'bloom. 

Youth so joyous! Youth so fleet! 
Age shall never know 
How I'll hold your passion, Sweet, 
Down the years that blow. 



PHILOSOPHY 

In spite of sin, in spite of scars, 
In spite of all my past may hold, 
I'll thread my future to the stars 
And weave a cloak of gold. 

For Love and Law have fashioned this- 
That out of sorrow Peace shall spring, 
And souls that burst their chrysalis 
Shall fly on gorgeous wing. 
1 08 



April — Marching 



GLADNESS 

Gladness is — what? 

Singing of spring with birds on the wing? 

Perish the thought! 

The day may be dark 
With the sun at its noon. 
And birds may sing only regret 
In their tune. 

What of the sunshine? 
What of the flower? 
What of time ? What of space 
In the blank of one hour? 

Unless in this chaos 
Of living and learning 
Comes Love with his magic 
And measureless yearning ! 

Fills the lark with his trill ! 
Tints the rose with his blush ! 
Brings to life what lay still 
Just before in Death's hush! 

Ah — Gladness is that! 



109 



April — Marching 



CHALLENGE 

Challenge I fling to the morning. 
Challenge I fling to the noon. 
Challenge I fling to the night wind 
When the day wanes soon. 

Life, I will fight to the finish. 
Broken, I'll still defy. 
And drain my cup to the bitter dregs 
With a laugh when it's time to die. 

But lest you brand me a coward 

Because if I dared to pause 

For a thought of the joy that might have been 

Or a dream of the faith that was, 

I might lose my grip like a puppet 
And drivel in sore disgrace, 
Life, I hurl down the gauntlet 
And battle you face to face! 

Though there's little to gain by living, 
And nothing to lose by death, 
The world shall not dub me "quitter" 
As long as my soul draws breath. 

For the moment my senses stagger 
I'll summon with bugle-blare 
The ghosts of the world's great women 
To quicken me — fire and prayer! 
no 



April — Marching 



Brunhild and Maria Theresa, 
Alcestis, Pompilia, Ruth, 
Jeanne d'Arc, Boadicea and Vashti, 
St. Agnes — Patron of Truth! 

And they, if my spirit waver, 
Will metal my courage, Life, 
For the test of the thickest tumult 
That ever was born of strife. 

So up ! and to arms ! and meet me ! 
Nor think you can claim your due 
Because you have flayed and scarred me, 
And broken my heart in two. 

Undaunted, I fling you my challenge 

To ring to the ends of earth. 

Life, I was born to conquer! 

And Death shall but prove my Birth ! 



Ill 



April — Marching 



A THANKSGIVING PRAYER 

From rosy dawn till dusk when purple twilight 
Brought to each Pilgrim heart a deep sweet peace, 
Wafted the murmuring strain of prayer and praises 
Whose vibrant harmony can never cease. 

Men with strong hearts! women with souls of 

virtue! 
Only a small, small band, but true and tried! 
Mindful to thank their Maker for the triumph 
That made men's souls through Freedom sanctified. 

God of our Fathers, from the mad confusion 
And din and roar of life let men's minds stray 
To bless this Pilgrim heritage of freedom 
That makes each soul a citadel today. 

Grant that our prayer may waft its strain of praises 
High, high to heaven, till every vibrant chord, 
Grown faint at last, down from the heights may 

echo 
A nation's "alleluia" unto God. 



112 



April — Marching 



PRAYER FOR COURAGE 

When loneliness shall fill my cup, 
God, keep me unafraid 
To hold my proud head — smiling — up, 
And march as on parade! 



SEA WAVES 

In June I heard the sea waves call 
Across an ebbing tide, 
More desolate than wind or storm, 
And more unsatisfied. 

Yet oh I loved their hungry song, 
For to the heart of me 
They sang of golden summer dreams 
Long drifted out to sea. 



SONG OF A COUNTRY LANE 

My heart feels only pity 
And my soul feels pain 
For folk in the city 
When it's spring again, 

Where it's brick for a feather, 
And wall for a tree, 
And stone for a heather 
And moth for a bee. 

113 



April — Marching 



A city shares no glory 
With field and brook, 
Or fathoms the old story 
Of the Holy Book 

From wide white spaces 
Or blue gold hills, 
Or young lambs' faces 
Or April squills. 

And that is why I pity, 
When spring shuts down, 
The folk in the city 
And folk in the town 

Who never searched a rafter 
For a phoebe's nest, 
Or laughed spring's laughter, 
Or shared spring's zest. 

For a city men can fashion 
With their hands and brain 
Of steel, stone and passion 
And sweat and pain — 

But meadow, field and prairie 
And hill and lea 
God made with aid of fairy 
For such as me. 



114 



April — Marching 



THE SONG SPARROW 

The song sparrow's come to my orchard again. 
Dear little Quaker-Coat, simple and cheery! 
And caroled his prelude to spring in the rain, 
Banishing doubt from my heart winter-weary. 

The March dirges howl round his icicled perch. 
Sleet crackles down in a shivering sally. 
But only of larches he sings, and of birch 
Burgeoning green with the bloom in the valley. 

Of murmuring whisper astir in the leaves, 
Dew in the dawn on the hills pearly-heathered, 
And sedges and hollyhocks bent to the breeze, 
Swaying to troubadours gaudier feathered. 

Dear little Song Sparrow, humble and true! 
Championing happiness, vanquishing sorrow, 
Could I but pattern my faith after you, 
Glad would I welcome the gift of tomorrow ! 

Sweet! sweet! sweet!! 
Life is very fair. 
Sweet! sweet! sweet!! 
Love is everywhere ! 



"5 



April — Marching 



JONQUILS 

A jug of jonquils sweet 
On a tenement sill in spring 
Far down on Hester street. 
A jug of jonquils sweet! 
But oh what a tender treat ! 
How their yellow trumpets sing 
To those who pause on their beat 
Glad-eyed and wondering! 

BLUEBIRD 

Bluebird, bluebird, in the spring, 
Set my heart to caroling 
As I watch your beauty gleam 
Over meadow-land and stream. 

Teach me how to quell despair, 
O thou Turquoise of the Air, 
How to keep my dust-fringed eyes 
Clear, to see the starry skies. 

Never other bird for me 
Sings with such sweet ecstasy. 
Never other bird but you 
Turns my grayness swift to blue. 

All the winter long I yearn 
For your flashing glad return, 
To ease my soul of hungering, 
Bluebird, bluebird, in the spring. 
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April — Marching 



TO A BIRD IN FLANDERS 

When Flemish fields were white with spring, 
I heard a birdnote sound 
A clarion to the slumbering 
Beneath God's battleground. 

It winnowed through the April leaves. 
It tuned the countryside. 
It trembled through the bluebell sheaves 
Like music on a tide. 

It sang of Flemish pastorals 
From dear dead days of old — 
Of lowing cattle in their stalls 
And sheep within their fold, 

Of shepherds on the high hilltops 
And plowboys in the lea, 
And sunshine quickening the crops 
From valley to the sea. 

And not one note of martial stress 
Or caroled hint of wrong! 
Only a glad forgetfulness 
Of everything but song! 

Across that Flemish field it poured, 
And as I caught its strain, 
I felt my spirit sheathe its sword 
And faith come back again! 
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April — Marching 



THE TAVERN 

I built a tavern in my heart 
Of memory-woof and rafter, 
Where I could smoke a pipe of dreams, 
And drink a cup of laughter. 

And all along the broad highway, 
And low among the heather, 
I called my absent comrades back 
To break bread together. 

I built a tavern in my heart, 

And this — my only reason : 

To keep love's hearth-fire burning bright 

From season unto season. 



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April — Marching 



WANDERER'S SONG 

I still might be a stay-at-home 
With eyes that look behind, 
A grumpy, -dumpy stay-at-home 
With worn-out rusty dreams 
If I had had like some lads 
A mother deaf and blind 
To lure of gypsy roamings where 
The Highway gleams. 

I still might be a stay-at-home 
If when the choosing came, 
( I mark me yet the hearth-fire, 
How snug it was and bright!) 
My mother had not read my heart 
Youth-rent with dream and flame, 
And sent me battle-girded forth 
To feast and fight! 

I still might be a stay-at-home 
But oh how better far 
To roam the gorgeous gypsy world 
With singing soul on wing, 
Hearing in stir of vine and bough, 
Breaker and wind and star, 
My mother's benison that crowns 
My journeying! 



19 



April — Marching 



THE FORK OF THE ROAD 

It's little we know what Fate decrees 
When two straight roads diverge, 
And each is a fair Hesperides 
That calls with a gypsy urge. 

We may come to the fork of a road in spring, 
Crowned by a cobalt sky, 
And choose the "right" for our journeying 
With never a question "why" — 

But it's little we know when the acorns fall 
Under the red oaks' flame, 
That if we had followed the "left" road's call, 
Life would have been the same. 



April — Marching 



WOODS IN MARCH 

At Ponkapoag a budding birch 
Flashed scarlet through the snow. 
At Houghton's Pond, on icy perch 
Two robins twittered low. 

And out upon the Blue Hill Road, 
In spite of wind and sleet, 
A little hint of April glowed 
From unexplored retreat! 

At Ponkapoag my heart took flame. 
At Houghton's Pond it woke. 
But when to Blue Hill Road I came 
It leaped to song — and broke 

Into a myriad notes that swirled 
Like fairy folk on wing, 
To tell the sleeping winter world 
That I had found the spring! 



April — Marching 



A CYCLE OF SEASONS 



January- 



The year's birth or the soul's, 

Whiche'er it be, 

New pathways trail their glory 

To the sea. 

New days dawn brighter 

And new hopes hold store 

Of love and laughter 

And an open door! 



February- 



February, though we blame 
You for being too severe 
Sometimes with us, just the same, 
You have given us Leap-Year, 
Good Saint Valentine's and fun, 
Lincoln, too, and Washington. 



March- 



No cloud so dark, but what behind 

Its lining silver hovers. 

No March so wild in storm or wind, 

But somewhere one discovers 

A clump of pussywillows shrined 

And Spring's first crocus lovers. 



April — Marching 



April — 

Lute notes of April ! 
Lark and daffodil! 
Shadow and silence 
Over violet hill ! 
Leafing of branches, 
Flowering of vine ! 
April is God's month. 
That's why Love's divine. 

May — 

May, you appear like a bride of delight, 
Clothed in your loveliness, shimmering, bright. 
Hair the sun's glory, and eyes the sky's blue, 
Slippers the tinseled pale silver of dew, 
Veil the cloud patches, and dress the soft glow 
Of apple- and cherry- and pear- and peach- 
blow. 
I wonder how Nature can give you away, 
Beautiful, blossoming, wonderful May! 

June — 

I'd like to fill a rose-jar 
With red June roses, 
And ship them on a silver spar 
Upon a dream away, 
To bear the summer's passion 
In magic fairy fashion 
To where the lonely-hearted are 
From Cairo to Cathay. 
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April — Marc h ing 



July— 

Elderberry! huckleberry! blueberry vine! 
Wild currants on a bush, red as wine! 
Honied hills of clover! waving fields of rye! 
Who wouldn't be a rover — in July! 

A ugust — 

A blackbird trills from a boxwood spray. 

A locust drones in the green. 

And a merry little cricket, 

Hidden in the hay, 

Strums on his tambourine. 

They say that in August the "dog days" come, 

But there's never a plague of dogs. 

Oh it's heigh-diddle-diddle 

To the insects' fiddle 

For the bees and the beetles and the frogs ! 

September — 

A pocketful of memories! 
A bagful of song! 
A russet road's a glad road 
To trail along, 

With the hum of the grain sheaves 
Bent to the breeze, 
And the crisp sharp crackle 
Of feet in the leaves. 
The snack of the fire 
In days frost-cool, 
And the shout of the children 
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A pril — Marching 



Going back to school — 

A russet road's a glad road 

But only he 

Can listen to its symphony 

Who travels — free! 

October — 

Harvest Moon, what do you spy? 
Grain fields gleaned, and bins stack high. 

Harvest Moon, what do you know? 
The sower s joy in things that grow. 

Harvest Moon, what do you ween 
Is the richest harvest you have seen? 

Golden deeds sown wise in youth, 
Grown in age to the fruitage truth. 

November — 

November! and a white ground 
With tracks in the braken! 
Musk ox and beaver ! 
Caribou and hare! 
Love's song of living, 
The glory of Thanksgiving, 
And the strapping and the trapping 
Of the game in its lair ! 
The frost in the crepuscule 
From white stars shaken! 
November! — and a white ground 
With snow in the air! 
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A pril — Marching 



December- 



Swift the year's winging! 

Holly and fir, 

And star in the east for the worshipper! 

Garner its measure: 

Gladness and sorrow, 

Travail and treasure, 

Now ere tomorrow ! 

Swift the year's winging! 

Joy be its leaven ! 

Take the road — singing. 

God's in His heaven ! 



PRAIRIES 

Prairies, that our love may last, 
Let me wander forth awhile, 
To the city's multitude 
Of towered Babels, mile on mile. 

Back to palaces of steel 

Where all day long men ply their trade, 

Back to canyoned avenues 

Where pomp and poverty parade. 

Prairies, that our love may last, 
Let me wander forth awhile 
To feast or hunger with the crowds, 
Ere I forget to smile. 

i 26 



April — Marching 



QUATRAIN 

He lives most wisely who can truly say, 

When toil is ended, and the day is done, 

That one kind thought or deed throughout the day 

Has moved his dark world nearer to the sun. 



BRIDGES 

He stood and watched from the bridge of love, 
Pleading, sad, 

As I crossed over the bridge of fame, 
Hopeful, glad. 

And I thought: "I will drink to its very lees 
This cup of life that my selfhood sees, 
Ere I lose my power to win and please. 

Mere love can wait till tomorrow!" 

* * * 

I drank the chaff that men call "success." 
Prouder then 

I turned my steps from the land of Self 
Home again. 

And I thought: "I'll be glad now of Love's dear 

care. 
I'll rejoice at the sight of him, waiting there." 
But oh! when I looked, the bridge was bare — 
And love had died of his sorrow. 
127 



April — Marching 



THIRD AVENUE 

Third Avenue is overrun 
With human trafficking and drays, 
And where the sun slants overhead 
The trestles intercept its xays. 

Yet from the sidewalks grim and gray 
The Hebrew children laugh and sing, 
Dotting the dreary stretch of miles 
Like lilies in the fields of spring. 

And sometimes here and sometimes there, 
Pursuing phantoms in the street, 
They scatter, as 'twere morning mist, 
The misery of them they meet. 



THE CALL OF THE ROAD 

Give me one fleeting glimpse of country road 
With spiral swerve 
And moonlit silhouette of fir and pine 
On crusted curve! 
Give me the sheen of snow-clad hill, 
The tinkling sleighbells' silver trill, 
And I'll forget the shriek and shrill 
Of crowded city's roar. 
128 



April — Marching 



Give me one fleeting glimpse of country road 

With morning dew 

Beading the tansy and the mignonette 

With pearly hue. 

Give me the chirping cricket-call, 

The goldenrod along the wall, 

And I'll return — whate'er befall — 

To paradise once more! 



WAX WINGS 

Out where the sky and the snow-capped hills 
Meet in a line of blue, 
There startled a vision of silver sheen 
That shrouded the peaks and all between 
In a mist of pale gray hue. 

I watched and nearer, nearer came, 

Like phantom-flashing ghosts, 

The wax-wings in a murmuring wave, 

So musical and unafraid 

I blessed their whirring hosts. 



129 



